Rega DAC 176.4 khz glitch

Hello All,

I am very close to purchasing an early vintage Rega DAC - not r version. It is within the serial# range in which there was issue with output a 176.4 khz. The owner says they have not noticed this as they do not have a lot of tracks at that resolution. Back when the DAC first came out in 2011 they would repair these for free and dacs built after May 2011 had the issue remedied.

Can anyone say how serious an issue this might be? Am I likely to encounter it? The North America Rega distributor seems to not be able to shed much light as to whether it can be fixed or how likely it is to be a problem. If it did require being repaired it would likely be at my cost and require shipping from my location in Victoria B.C. to the Rega service centre in either Quebec or Texas. I am not too keen on buying something if that is a likelihood.

Thanks,
Garth

 

A difficult sample rate to find. I own no source material at it.

 

Thanks! I am pretty ignorant about these things. I would use it as a DAC for a CD transport and maybe my DVD player and my Node 2i streaming Tidal but maybe Qubuz when it is available in Canada.

Not too sure where I would find a file at 176.4 khz.

 

In my library of about 3500 albums, I have 4 at that sample rate. Three on the BIS label (downloaded from eClassical.com), and one on the Reference Recordings label. It is not common. Some file players allow downsampling such to 88.2 kHz. With good quality sample-rate conversion, I would expect little or no audible loss of sound quality.

 

Good to know! Thanks!

 

Thanks Mike!

 

Don’t do it it’s a piece of garbage

 

Surprised to hear that. The dac has received pretty much nothing but Rave reviews here and other places. Not to everyone’s taste of course - what is? - but I think this is the first negative opinion I have read about it.

 

He bumped a whole bunch of old Rega posts with disparaging comments.

 

The sample rate is not common. That said, I would not be buying a DAC that is 11 years old right now. That's ancient in DAC terms. The market moved on and there are many choices available, many of which are likely to outperform that unit. You'll also get a warranty with a new unit.

 

Rega DAC D/A processor

 

Guaranteed I have 100X the experience with Rega product vs you.

 

Please list your experience to prove your credibility.

 

What he said! unless they give you it for free, any DAC older than 10 years is now obsolete and it can easily be more troublesome than not these days.

 

There were very strong DACs available in 2012 for decent money. The market has moved on but not massively so. However, if you go back 20 years, it is a totally different market now.

 

Everything they’ve ever made since mid 90’s minus the exotics. Now list yours.

 

More troublesome?
Would you mind sharing whatever it is you're sniffing with the rest of us?

I run an "obsolete" DAC, and it's not knocked into the weeds with this month's favoured product!

 

It's a great-sounding DAC. I had one a few years ago; loved the fact you could change the filtering on it, from a more analytical sound to a more natural ('apodising'?) one. Actually, all the settings sounded good.

I used mine fed from the coax out from a cheap DVD player ... and it sounded as good as some serious $$$$ CD decks I've heard. Worked flawlessly. If someone burgled my place and took my $$$$ Naim deck (one of the best out there), I'd just look for a used Rega DAC (or DAC-R) and get on with music.

 

I still own the original Rega DAC. It is very enjoyable listen. Bass seems boosted a bit. The knock I have on the original DAC is the USB implementation is substandard.

In the $300 or less range Its a worthy product for Coax or toslink connection. Over that I'd probably recommend a Schiit Bifrost 2 or others.